BIONICLE: Project: Artifact: Our Story
by EMMSixteenA4
Summary: Turaga Vakama rambles on to himself to prepare you for Project Artifact. The Second Quest for the Masks is about to begin.
1. Vakama's Tale of Darkness

Introduction:  
A brief history on Bionicle

The BIONICLE (Biological Chronicle) was a long story told by and about organic/bio-mechanical beings. It spanned hundreds of thousands of years and took place in a solar system known as Solis Magna. It was primarily about the Toa, the Matoran, and their adventures. Most beings in the BIONICLE wore Kanohi, or "masks" that augment them with power. Elements were manipulated by all beings for constructive-and destructive-use.

The word BIONICLE is commonly mistaken for standing for "Biomechanical Chronicle," rather than its true name, of "Bio_logical_ Chronicle." Another misconception is that it is derived from Bionic with a -le suffix.

Teridax, the leader of the Brotherhood of Makuta, an organization dedicated to serving Mata Nui and protecting the Matoran, had begun making plans to take control over the Matoran Universe, inspired by the League of Six Kingdoms. To do this, he planned to infect Mata Nui with a virus, causing him to fall asleep.

300 years after the Brotherhood attacked Mata Nui with a virus, when Mata Nui passed Aqua Magna on his way to where Spherus Magna once was, he went into a coma.

Mata Nui was making his way back to Bara Magna to fulfill his destiny and reform Spherus Magna. The virus then activated, and he went into a coma and fell towards the nearest planet, Aqua Magna. When Mata Nui hit the ground, the whole Matoran Universe suffered from an earthquake.

The earthquake of the Great Cataclysm caused some land to break away from the Southern Continent, and to blast onto the surface of Aqua Magna. How the piece of land managed to launch up onto Aqua Magna was unknown. This land would later be called Voya Nui, which would become a broken, stormy land only notable because of the Mask of Life, Ignika, in its large volcano.

The impact of Mata Nui's fall damaged his camouflage system, although it still functioned at the time, and caused the creation of the island of Mata Nui. Energized Protodermis also leaked when the camouflage system damaged, resulting in 6 regions to be created on the island, each with a different climate.

The earthquake also damaged The Pit, causing in the release of the prisoners, and also creating a hole in Karda Nui's ceiling that would allow Pit Mutagen to leak on the floor of the Universe Core, resulting in the creation of the Swamp of Secrets and the Stalactite Villages, resulting in the Av-Matoran returning to the Universe Core, and damaged other areas in the Matoran Universe.

While Mata Nui could not or would not prevent the devastating attack, he made sure that heroes would come to restore the worst of what was lost.

The most immediate matter was that the Matoran in Metru Nui had to be evacuated safely out of danger. Fortunately, Mata Nui's choices for Toa Metru did not fail him, though it was not an easy task: Teridax had summoned the Visorak hordes to invade Metru Nui, and Toa Vakama's overconfidence led the team to be mutated into half-beast Toa Hordika. However, in the end, the Toa were cured of their mutation and the Matoran were safely relocated to the tropical island above the city that the Toa had discovered and named "Mata Nui", in honor of the sleeping Great Spirit. Once there, the Toa Metru gave up their Toa power to wake the Matoran from their stasis, becoming Turaga. But their victory had come at a price - Teridax had been freed from his prison, and would certainly be back.

Another preparation made before the Cataclysm was that the Toa Mata entered Toa Canisters until the day they were needed to save the Great Spirit. When their training was completed, they entered the Codrex and were placed in their canisters. As soon as Mata Nui crashed onto the ocean planet, the canisters were launched, eventually reaching the surface of Aqua Magna, where they were supposed to float to Mata Nui. However, the canisters malfunctioned and were left drifting in the sea for a thousand years.

The Toa Mata were created by Artakha over 100,000 years ago on Daxia in case the Great Spirit was ever needed to be awakened, and they first walked on the island of Daxia. At one point, they were trained by Hydraxon. After a series of adventures in Karda Nui, they were put into Toa Canisters, where they stayed until they were needed. Unlike most Toa, they were never Matoran, and were named for their elemental prefixes.  
The Toa canisters dropped into the sea the moment Mata Nui fell asleep. They were intended to drop in the ocean and land on the island now known as Mata Nui, and from there arrive at Metru Nui, but the canisters were faulty and they wound up drifting in the sea for the next thousand years. Takua, an Av-Matoran disguised as a Ta-Matoran, now having moved to Mata Nui, his memory of Metru Nui erased, summoned them by collecting the six Toa Stones made and scattered across Mata Nui by the Toa Metru. They arrived on the island in pieces, but quickly put themselves back together. After floating for so long their organic tissue had decayed into nothing. By fusing their mechanical parts together, new tissue was allowed to grow. Unfortunately, due to the memory-erasing properties of the Toa canisters, they remembered almost nothing of their former lives.

Quest for the Masks

When the Toa Mata, who were simply called "The Toa" by the Matoran there, arrived on Mata Nui, they made their way to their respective villages. They found that the Matoran had been engaged in a long conflict to hold off the Rahi threat from Makuta Teridax. The Turaga sent them to gather six Great Kanohi and Noble Kanohi, without which the six Toa would have no chance of defeating Teridax (Who was simply known as The Makuta by the Turaga and Matoran), who had taken over the island. During their searches, they battled many of Teridax's infected Rahi. After collecting their Kanohi, they arrived at the Suva Kaita, where they placed the masks on statues of themselves. After doing so, a Golden Kanohi, which granted the power of all six of the Toa's Great Masks: Akaku, Hau, Miru, Pakari, Kakama, and Kaukau, appeared on each statue.

They gathered the six pieces of the Makoki stones and entered Teridax's lair through the Kini-Nui. There they combined into two Toa Kaita, Akamai and Wairuha, to defeat Teridax's strongest guardians, the Manas. After defeating the crab Rahi, the Toa Kaita split apart into the six Toa Mata again. Shortly thereafter, they encountered shadow versions of themselves, which had the same powers and strengths. After a futile battle, the six Toa absorbed their shadow counterparts into themselves. They continued on into Teridax's lair. The villain confronted them first as a Matoran, but changed into a swirling mass of tentacles and shadow energy. The Toa only won by combining their powers against him.

Later, Mata Nui, given a Toa form by the Kanohi (mask) Ignika (Mask of Light) reclaimed Bara Magna, defeating a Skrall army. The Skrall were the rock tribe indigenous to Spherus Magna before the Core War, a war which separated Spherus Magna into three barely habitable dwarf planets- Bara Magna, the last bastion of the Glatorian and Agori, Aqua Magna, an uninhabitable water planet and Bota Magna, a great jungle. This event was known as the shattering- and was largely due to the Skrall army of Roxtus.

Bara Magna is a great desert.

It is where all are born. It is where all will die.

Should you have any other questions on this fantastic series, please consult the Wikipedia ( wiki).

Trivia: _Toá_ in the Maori language (a real-life language) translates to Warriors in English. How curious.


	2. Epilogue: Vakama's Last Word

"Or is it?

Tahu is trying to calm me down like I'm some crazy old man. Like I'm Dume, the poor man losing his mind over some terrible memories- something about not being able to find a Toa of Plasma in time.

_In time_.  
In time? In time for what? I'm not sure. But. . . Let me tell you an old legend I heard from a travelling Toa of Sonics named Krakua.

Krakua is a member of the Order of Mata Nui, you see. Keeping peace all over the world is a huge task. They are still spread thin. Krakua once told me that they had an ex-Dark Hunter come on board recently. Top secret: he only dealt with Helryx and Hydraxon. Krakua says he has been tasked to keep an eye on a tribe and then talk to one of our Matoran here, at the Village- Roark. He's a Fe-Matoran with a Ga-Matoran whom he has been through Mahri Nui and back with, even stopping by Karda Nui on the way out. He is distressed over the Hero's death- Toa Matoro, I mean. But I digress, this Toa is a Toa of Plasma. Krakua told me that he had heard a legend of an ancient tribe of warrior Bo-Matoran who had somehow escaped the Matoran Universe before the Shattering. They were named The Arkdenth. And Krakua says that they helped this Toa of Plasma defeat a being a pure, unimaginable darkness during the time in which Lhikan was a Toa. And that now that being- known only as The Titan - is coming again.  
Maybe I should keep an eye on Roark. In fact, he'll be by the stream with his friend now. I'd better get going."

- Vakama


End file.
